Eleven Facts about Uranus

Fact One

After Saturn, a space-craft would have to travel 1,500,000,000 kilometres to reach Uranus.
This means the planet is almost twice the distance from the Sun than
Saturn is.

Fact Two

Uranus orbits the Sun on its side. Its
south pole is pointed towards Earth.
The angle of the tilt of the axis of Uranus is 97 degrees. This is probably due to an object the
size of Earth smashing into Uranus during its formation billions of years ago.

Fact Three

Voyager 2 was the first manmade object to reach Uranus. It had previously
visited Jupiter and Saturn and had taken exciting close-up images of those two planets and their
moons. However, when the first pictures of Uranus from Voyager 2 were received on
Earth in January
1986, scientists were disappointed to see that it was a pale blue, featureless world. Six years of
waiting and all they saw were images like the one on the left!

Fact Four

Uranus' pale blue colour is caused by the methane in its atmosphere which
filters out red light.

Fact Five

If we were able to see Uranus' moons orbiting the planet, they would go over
and under the planet like lights on a ferris wheel.

Fact Six

Like the other Gas Giants (Jupiter,
Saturn and Neptune), Uranus has rings of
ice and small rock particles. However, these rings are so faint, they are only visible for special
scientific equipment.

Fact Seven

Uranus has 27 moons (so far discovered) orbiting the planet. Ten of these were
discovered in 1986 by the Voyager 2 mission.

Fact Eight

A day on Uranus is a few hours shorter than a day on
Earth - the planet takes
17 hours to spin on its axis. However, a year on Uranus is much longer than a year on
Earth.
In fact, it takes 84 years on Earth for Uranus to complete one orbit around the
Sun!

Fact Nine

Uranus was the first planet in the Solar System to be "discovered". The
planets known of at the time of the discovery of Uranus were
Mercury, Venus,
Earth, Mars,
Jupiter
and Saturn. Ancient astronomers were able to see these objects without telescopes or binoculars and
named them after their Gods. Uranus was discovered much later using scientific instruments, in 1781,
but was still named after an ancient god (in mythology, Uranus was the ruler of the Gods)

Fact Ten

Because of Uranus' unique tilt, a night at one of its poles lasts for 21
Earth
years, during which it will receive no light or heat at all from the
Sun.

Fact Eleven

Almost all of the moons of Uranus are named after characters in plays written
by Shakespeare. The moons of every other planet in the Solar System are named after characters in
Greek and Roman mythology. The two moons of Uranus that are not named after Shakespearean characters
(Arlel and Umbriel) are named after characters in a book called "The Rape of the Lock" written by
Alexander Pope.